Scarborough: US Must Cut War Costs

Although the United States may have achieved some important successes in Mideast wars over the past 10 years, the government has to curb spending on these conflicts, says Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

The ouster of tyrants such as Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein “do not come without great cost,” the former Florida Republican congressman writes on Politico. “As America’s war machine drones into a new decade, it is time Washington begins focusing more on the costs, rather than merely the benefits of these wars.”

He questions spending $2 billion a week to keep the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan.

“What started as an anti-terror campaign against al-Qaida has devolved into an anti-insurgency campaign against a religious sect that does not want to blow up buildings in New York or Washington,” Scarborough writes.

“A decade after Sept. 11, most Americans probably agree with me that keeping the Taliban out of power over the next decade is not worth an additional $1 trillion and countless American lives.”

Although the United States may have achieved some important successes in Mideast wars over the past 10 years, the government has to curb spending on these conflicts, says Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC s Morning Joe. The ouster of tyrants such as Libya s Moammar Gadhafi...